The 1990s is a long time ago

Thanks Brian I feel like a dinosaur now ! In 1999 I was living in Sydney with most of my friends like a lot of Irish 20 somethings back then, now I’m just old

there was a moment there in the early 2000s when life was golden...i like to call those the camelot years...before the real effects of 9/11 started to kick in...and then it all went downhill from there!

In reality, not that much has changed since the 1990's. There's certainly not the differences that the changes between the 1960's -> 1990's made. Probably the biggest absolute change is the internet and how it now pretty much governs a lot of people lives, both private and working. Our immediate forms of remote communication through (so called) smart phones is probably the single most obvious thing one can point to in that regard. But that is really just the result of logical steps forward.

The cost of certain things have certainly taken a bizarre leap (even without factoring in current events). Buying something as simple and necessary as a roof over your head is a pipe dream for many. But other stuff, like certain electronic items are actually cheaper in the grand scheme of things.

But the changes between 1965 and 1995 feel much more radical than the changes between 1995 and now. And the changes between 1935 to 1965 even more so.

I look back at photo's of the 90's and they could be taken a couple of years ago. When I look back at photo's of my parents, it's like looking at a history book.

The 90s were really fast moving. My brother is 2 years older than me and when he finished education there were no jobs about and he emigrated. When I came out of education there were tons of jobs and I was offered practically every job I applied for. The companies were willing to train people up from scratch too no matter what you studied.

It also had a a strange effect on the generation just behind us. When we grew up nobody really had money and shows of wealth were sort of frowned upon as it seemed like gloating. Teenagers made a lot of their own clothes or at least modified them. People a few years younger were now loaded with money it seemed and were buying and wearing a lot more named brands. Reality was the parents had more money so gave more to their kids.

House prices were rising at this point but people didn't pay much attention as wages were also rising but it was a significant increase and it didn't stop till 2007. I always think people talking about the peak and the plummet miss that when they fell it was still significantly more expensive to buy a house after the crash compared to 20 years earlier. So even when prices stop rising or even crash the price is still way more than before in real terms.

There was a sense of optimism in the 90's and early 2000s that is now gone.

Now we're all loaded up with environmental doom & gloom, nuclear war on the horizon, orwellianism, doomscrolling and any pastime that carries a bit of risk is only one sob story away from being banned.

The West had a great run of it from about 1945 until 2007 but even in the 2000s the cracks were starting to show. 1990s were probably the last clean decade of that massive period of expansion

One thing I realized my parents didn't have Xmas trees in their childhood. It just wasn't a thing. That blew my mind.

The Famine was a long time ago. But someone born say in 1905 could have been alive in the 1990's, and spoken to someone alive now. When they were 10 in 1915, they could have spoken to someone born in 1835 who lived through the Famine.

In an extreme case, someone born in 1840 could have spoken to someone in 1935 who was born in 1930, still alive now. A direct link back to Famine times.

Parts of Dublin looked like a WW2 bombed out city in the 1980s.

Hassle free time, I finished school, did a college course, moved to live abroad for a bit to live in Paris in ‘98 and got myself to a World Cup semi final as well as a few more games….

joined the workforce, had jobs I liked, started traveling, socialising, earning… my formative years for gaining an appreciation for all different styles and genres of music…

went to a lot of gigs, pubs, traveled extensively, horizons expanded…no negatives about the 1990’s… was really good.

music was decent, only a tiny percentage of the manufactured pap we have to endure now…there were loads of bands and acts actually creating, playing as opposed to ‘performing’..

It's a sign you're getting old when you denounce modern music. In the 60's it was old people shouting "turn that rubbish off" when the Beatles came on the radio. I take a benign view that every month new music, films, books etc are being produced, and they add to the choices existing already. No need to complain about them, when everything from the past "golden ages" is still there to enjoy.

Not at all. You weren't there for sure. The dystopian future hasn't come unless you see a T1000 about that I missed. Tech has been way more beneficial than people thought. What is the ugly side of tech that is a new thing?

I don't know about the 2008 being the worst the recovery was very quick in comparison to other huge events.

The 90s is the anomaly for Ireland and we may never see the like again. It set us up for 2007 where we crashed before the world did a year later. Cheap credit and optimism are not a good foundation for stable economics.

You are doom and glooming yourself with a faulty rear view

If Back to the Future was made today and Marty followed the same time lines he'd be journeying back to 1992.

Fcuk

My

Life

😭

I dont either. Doesn't make sense to be skimping on a few drops of petrol where Pewtin is blowing up whole storage facilities. Got meself a boat with a nice smelly 2-stroke outboard a few years back. Mighty job. I am all for renewable power but I'm not going to sit around being miserable & depriving myself. The only problem is that people generally appear to be hung up about these things, they no longer feel free to enjoy themselves to the extent that they did in the 90s.

I think 1990s were peak Ireland. We should be striving to bring the 90s back.

The Carina E should be put back into production.

Would you at least have still been in school to see him?

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The problem is we're back to that exact place now. We learned absolutely nothing from 2008.

Was a good time to be a teenager alright. You have to feel for kids now, covid, biodiversity and extinction crisis, pollution getting worse and worse worldwide, climate change and now what is probably the starting phases of WW3. I don't remember having any existential worries in the 90s.

It's manufactured music produced by engineers and computers not musicians or artists. It's just the same stuff reheated to a formula. It's why it's all sounds similar.

If you want original authentic music you have to move away from the mainstream and seek it out.

Was born in 1985 so I became a teenager in 1998 and turned 18 in 2003 so got a bit of the 1990s as a teenager. I have fond memories of going on holidays here in Ireland and just going out in the morning and being out all day. I think for people my age 9/11 is a point in history where we measure things pre and post 9/11. I’ve watched the news coverage back and even twenty years later it’s bizarre to watch.

I think TV shows and cartoons used to be way better when I was growing up because nobody was trying to imply some other meaning into a cartoon like they’ve done now for Disney stuff from the 1990s. Anyway yeah I’m happy I got to experience the world pre technology overload.

We really aren't. Banks are way more strict on lending criteria now so while credit is cheap it is no way as easy to access. The main curtailment has been mortgage deposit requirements which we learnt from 2008. I don't think Ireland or the world feels optimistic at the moment.

Are you saying this because house prices are high?

It was all hash and no grass aswell, the really long ten spots !! Blokes all dressing grundgy like Kurt Cobain or pearl jam before Oasis came along, but at least the girls didn't use fake tan or have trout pout lips !! It was pretty easy to get served in most pubs underage aswell and there was lots of drink driving going on at the time